Letters to Sartre Read online

  I had a dream about Bienenfeld last night. I first dreamed that at the post office they gave me a letter from you, from London, in which you were complaining of being bored for no good reason. And I was suddenly furious at the thought that I’d been hanging about in Paris, far away from you, for no good reason either. So I cabled you: ‘Come back!’ and told Bienenfeld I was returning to Paris to see you. She declared that she wanted those ten days in September for herself — just her and you — since she’d been so long without seeing you. So I became furiously angry and said such harsh things to her that she flung herself down on a bed screaming and sobbing, and we hated one another.

  And then, today, she really did calculate: ‘In six months, Sartre will get 6 days leave. You will let me spend three days with him, won’t you? There’ll be three left for you.’ And I felt myself trembling inside with anger. Six days, in six months, how little that will be! How I shall want you to myself! We’ll have to hide out like criminals. This ruthlessness of mine is very premature, of course, but I’m beginning to wait for those six days, I’m beginning to realize I won’t see you before that — I’m beginning to miss you horribly. It’s not yet sorrow or anything tragic, it’s more like some food I’m lacking: I’ve enough just to vegetate, but always with an empty feeling in my stomach and a certain languor — whereas with you I used to be vigorous.

  At 2 yesterday I’d just finished writing to you when Bienenfeld came to pick me up. We went for a beautiful walk which she’ll doubtless tell you all about — it was wild and very lovely. There really are Breton farms and houses of great beauty: austere but pure. But the people, with their headdresses and bonnets and blue eyes, are not a whit preferable to the yokels of Rodez — in fact, they’re even worse. The weather was fine and I loved being back in the country. For the first time since you left I had real desires, alive and stubborn: to go to the Pointe du Raz; to go for a bathe in the sea; to see Audierne and St Guénolé. But in the evening, when I found myself on my own again, I realized anew that it was wartime and the bistros and streets were full of soldiers. I looked for a restaurant — wanting something really cheap, because I’m a pauper and need a bit of cash for buses — and ended up in a grimy back shop, full of unwashed tramps and with food to match. They gave me a bread soup that had weevils in it, and then some other garbage. I swallowed down everything;, forcing myself to do so, and after quarter of an hour I fled. I went to one of the big cafes on the quays and wrote to Sorokine, then made up my journal. No sooner was it 8 p.m. than they, drew heavy blue curtains, shooed me back to the vicinity of the till, and switched off everything except three little lamps. There was just me and a customer fooling around with two whores. Luckily at 9 in the evening sleep overcame me, so I climbed up to my room and fell into a deep slumber. My hotel is an annexe of a big hotel connected to that Hôtel de l’Épée where you and I had lunch: through the windows I saw those paintings by the painter Lemordant again. I’m the only guest. There’s an entrance on the cathedral square: you go through a rustic dining-room where nobody eats any longer — it looks all neglected and absurd, with its poster for the Club des Sans-Club on the wall107 — then you go up a spiral staircase and find my little room, with its bed set back in an alcove. But at night this entrance is closed and you have to go through the garage of the Hôtel de l’Épée, then through a courtyard full of thistles and stinking drains. I find this hotel charming. From my little window, I can see old turreted houses and a grassy courtyard. All of Quimper is really agreeable, and round every corner you come across the most charming windows, roofs and gables.

  At 8.30 I was eating delicious croissants as I waited for Bienenfeld. I was hoping to go to the Pointe du Raz, but her mother had made such dreadful scenes again that there was no question of that. She didn’t arrive until 9, and we talked. We went to the top of a little hill, where we sat in the sun and had a charming view of the town. Then she went home. I found lots of pretty little restaurants reminding me of that one at Caen, where we sometimes used to go during the exam period. In one of them I ate copiously and drank a bottle of cider: it was good, but with cold veal for the first course and roast veal to follow — too much veal! I went to the cafe to wait for B. I’m reading Tête d’ Or, which I first read quiveringly ten years ago and which has stirred me again this time — the agony and death of Cébès is splendid.108 On the other hand, it’s a fascist — almost a Nazi — play. This afternoon we went for another fine walk, quite a long one since we didn’t get back till 7, after which we ate a few crepes and I came here to write to you. This is the other cafe, and though it has closed its metal shutters now, there are three tables occupied (two of them by officers) and it’s lit up. Furthermore, it’s leather rather than red plush and smells less of death. I’m going to read till I’m thrown out, then go back to my room. Goodbye, my love, I miss your letters. O you — my life, my health, and the salt of the earth — how colourless the world is without you! How grey everything is! Your tenderness is still with me from afar, but I’m not able — like the reader imagined by Maheu — to reinvent your thoughts and your words. You were such an ‘interesting’ and charming yourself, and I’m so bored of not hearing your voice any more — I do miss you, my love. If I should forget to kill myself out of passion at your death, I’d end up withering away gently from boredom and they’d bury me just the same. Come back to me.

  Your charming Beaver

  Grand Café de Bretagne

  Quimper

  Quimper, Friday 22 September [1939]

  My love,

  I’m in the same cafe as yesterday, at the same hour. It’s still light outside, but they’re already closing the metal shutters. I don’t have a great deal to tell you. I returned to my agreeable little room yesterday at about 10, after rereading Conrad’s End of the Tether, which is pretty good. I went to bed and read Jouhandeau’s La Jeunesse de Theophile, which I’m enjoying. Then I slept. I woke up in bright sunlight, came down at 8.30 and in the cafe found Bienenfeld with a poor little face ravaged by tears and lack of sleep, because of a hysterical scene with her mother. She more or less chucked B. out and forbade her ever to see me again. On Monday she’s taking her to Paris to see her father, and B. can’t refuse, which means that I’m rather kicking myself for having come all the way down here. I think I’ll have three days touring around, without a rucksack — which would be provocative — but with just my big handbag, which will take all I need. I’ll go and see Morgat, and the Pointe du Raz, and on the way I’ll revisit Douarnenez and Locronan, where we were so happy, my love — it was a honeymoon, do you remember, my sweet little one? Then I’ll go to Angers and see That Lady. I consoled B. as best I could, we went and sat in a very agreeable park surrounding the cathedral, and gradually she calmed down. At about 11 we took a coach and went to see the sea at Concarneau, which is a charming port with an old enclosed town entirely surrounded by ramparts, which jut into the sea like a tiny St Malo. We lunched off bread and rillettes on the ramparts, then set off on foot along a coast road and, in glorious weather, followed the sea, passing through some charming scenery. At 4 we” took another coach back to Quimper. We went up to my room and petted one another a bit — as much as possible, actually — but I was as cold as a log. Indeed, I think I’m totally frigid, which is also one way of being blocked. At 6 we went for one more little walk round Quimper, and I stuffed myself with cold crepes — which are not very good, but very cheap. As we were strolling along a street, some girls from the Red Cross school came up and told B. her sister had called in at the school to leave a message that she should go home immediately. She sped off at a run and I came back here. A quarter of an hour later she turned up again and told me her family had left at 2 with the car, and that there was nobody either at home or at the Perraults’ place. Then she went off again and I’m left bewildered. I’m going to write to Kos. and read and go home to sleep. I felt more affection for B. than yesterday — she was so concerned and touching — but she seems alien to my life, completely alien. I�
��m pressing her as hard as I can to try to come and live in Paris — her existence is really wretched.

  Goodbye, beloved little being. I have lots of little memories of you. I can’t believe that I’m not going to find you there in Paris. I love you. I’ve been happy with you — what a wealth of happiness behind me, my love! I kiss you so passionately, littlest of all charms, little all-charm, little charm-all.

  Your charming Beaver

  10 at night — B.’s affairs seem to be sorting themselves out somewhat.

  [Quimper]

  Saturday 23 September [1939]

  My love,

  I’ve had two letters from you — those of the 16th and 17th. They haven’t taken too long, seeing that I’m at Quimper. I’m so glad you’ve received the Gide and begun to receive my letters — I think you must have a lot of them by now. How good it will be when we can communicate together again — I so need to feel your thought close at hand.

  I’ve had nothing from Bost, but last Sunday all was going well with him and nothing much seems to have happened since then. Nothing from Kos. — I wonder why. I hope Wanda hasn’t been causing trouble (about Bienenfeld, for example), but I don’t think so. It’s probably the mails. I’m also annoyed because my parents will be in Paris on Tuesday, and I told Poupette — in order to avoid going to the Limousin — that I was staying in Paris. I’ll have to think up some explanation. On the other hand, I’ve received a friendly card from That Lady inviting me to La Pouèze, where I’ll be spending Thursday and Friday.

  I’ve had quite a good day today. This morning in the cafe from 8 to 10 I read the second version of Tête d’ Or and the second part of Shakespeare’s Henry IV — both a bit austere. Then Bienenfeld came along, her mind wholly taken up by problems of a lost key and identity-card, going into every attendant detail She has a frantic core that she expends on muddle-headed practical obsessions, or on puerile tragic fits. At times she moves me and at others she irritates me. This morning she irritated me — thinking all askew, attributing to some German leader or other a speech by Giraudoux, and panicking about a 10-F. lock. She left me to have lunch alone, and I ate very well, in a different bistro from the day before yesterday’s but of the same type and drinking a litre of cider. I was reading Mars ou la guerre jugée by Alain, which I find excellent but very horrific beneath its air of dry detachment — it really shook me. At a certain moment they gave the news from Warsaw on the radio, and it was astonishing to see the Breton women in their headdresses turn utterly expressionless faces to the set, quite impervious to the Polish disasters. After lunch I met up with Bienenfeld and her sister again, and we went by coach to the seaside. We found splendid white, rocky beaches, with a sea that was full of life and colour and wide horizons. We walked about for a while, then took to the water. It was searingly cold but soon grew voluptuous, and I realized with delight that my body was floating and moving over the water with an ease it had never known — but which seemed quite natural to me. I experienced a moment of deep joy. We rubbed ourselves down quickly, dressed again, went for a little walk, then returned home. I went for a walk on my own with Bienenfeld, in a little outlying part of the town where there’s a very beautiful church and old houses. There she became gloomy and pathetic. We went up to my room, where she cried from exhaustion. This life her mother subjects her to is unbearable — I really felt how painful and distressing it must be. I consoled her as best I could, but she plunged me into the dismals myself. I have the most wonderful luck to have money and not depend on anybody. It doesn’t prevent tragedy and horror; but that gloom of Bienenfeld or the Kos. sisters never overcomes me, because I feel free, disposing of my own life — and if need be of my death — and not being responsible to anyone but myself. I have only myself to blame if I let the situation get on top of me; and I have the maximum number of chances and possibilities, when it’s a question of finding a way in the dark. That’s why everything retains a savour of ‘experience’ and ‘interest’.

  I’ve come here to eat some pancakes in a very stylish little crêperie: the blue curtains don’t disfigure it, and it’s better being here than in the cafe.

  I really understand everything you write about war being indiscernible, and about hollow dumb-bells.109 For my part, I discern things everywhere that are a lousy, damned nuisance — but not war. That’s what disappoints Bienenfeld too — but I’d never really expected anything else. Just three or four times — at Esbly (that stop on the way to Crécy), or at the Dome, or in trains — I’ve really felt a black presence all round me, and this was a plenitude that was almost voluptuous. During the first week I experienced above all a kind of indefinite and somewhat debilitating flight — but then that was over and it’s now a matter of living in the moment. I can’t really imagine my return to Paris in a week’s time and the real resumption of my life.

  Bienenfeld claims that you’ll certainly receive your salary. On the other hand, her mother’s clamouring for that money — so I’m going to pay it back a thousand francs at a time. Gégé is offering me her flat at the same price I’m paying at the hotel, so I’m going to take it — but just for myself, since she wants to keep a room. That suits me very well. I’ll try and find a place for the Kos. sisters at Zuorro’s, or De Roulet’s, or my grandmother’s, or even my mother’s. If I have only my own salary, they can come for a week each month until Kos. finds a job. Then Wanda could spend a fortnight each month in Paris. If I have your salary too, I’ll give them 2,000 F. a month and pay debts with the rest; and I’ll put some money aside for when we don’t have your salary any longer, which may happen. I promise you I’ll do whatever’s best. I’m afraid I’ll also have to bring Bienenfeld to Paris from time to time. Poor little girl, I’m full of pity for her, but terribly detached from her — I care much more about Kos. at the moment.

  My love, do answer what I say in my letters, I want to talk to you. I do so long for something solid and hard to hold on to — do speak to me.

  About the N.R.F., there’s nothing to be said. I went there, and they told me it had moved but one should go on writing to Rue Sébastien Bottin — they’ll forward everything.

  Write quickly telling them to send me the money. I forwarded you the letter in which they say they’re still counting on your collaboration — write them an answer about that.

  Goodbye, my love. I feel really tired this evening. If I were told I was going to see you I think I’d faint from joy. But that doesn’t even amount to a wish, since I know only too well that I shan’t see you for a long while. I love you.

  Your charming Beaver

  Zuorro, That Lady tells me, is in Constantine, and Guille in Dijon. So they’re not badly off.

  Hotel de I ‘Épée

  Quimper

  Sunday 24 September [1939]

  Most dear little being

  Just a short note before I go to sleep, it’s already 10.30. I’ve just left Bienenfeld, and the separation was pathetic — at least on her side, poor creature. As for me I was touched, but coolly. It was, if anything, painful for me to rediscover in her countenance feelings that I’d had for others — and that, for weeks already, I no longer have. I’m growing hard, my love, it would take your own little person to make me melt. You say you don’t approve of your tranquillity; but I don’t much approve either of this kind of animal well-being to which I’ve been restricted for some time. This morning, while filling myself with meat and cider at lunchtime, I felt it was rather monstrous to be so violently alive; to enjoy my life and be satisfied with it, without thinking — and almost feeling — anything any more. I don’t know if it’s frivolity, or myopia, or selfishness. I don’t know how one ought to be. But those few moments of terror that I felt about Bost — and to some extent about you — strike me as a meagre price, set beside the privilege of being sure of preserving my life. This time is so strange. I wish for your return, and wishing for that means wishing for the end of the war: in other words, wishing for the war really to begin. You don’t know where to place a desire
— everything’s impossible.

  We spent another good day. In the morning, after two hours of reading during which I finished Mars ou la guerre jugée, I went for a walk in the outskirts of Quimper, where I saw a charming little church, This afternoon we went for a walk in some moorlike terrain along the Odet: it was a melancholy landscape of broom, pine and grey water, a really beautiful landscape that one could love with all one’s heart. I ate pancakes at the crêperie while reading Rimbaud en Abyssiniej from which I didn’t learn much.110 Then Bienenfeld came back, in spite of a scene with her mother, and we spent a dismal hour in my room. I don’t know what her father will decide, but she can’t go on living with her mother, who’s driving her mad. She’s really pitiful. Perhaps she’ll live on her own at Rennes — that would be best.

  You’ll probably have no letter for a day or two, since I’m leaving tomorrow morning for Morgat, from where I’ll be able to see the Pointe du Raz, and then Penmarch. On Wednesday evening I’ll leave, for Angers, and on Thursday I’ll be at La Pouèze. I’ll stay there till Monday 2nd, since the schools don’t reopen until the 9th. From Monday on I’ll be living at Gégé’s — i.e. 116 Rue d’Assas, c/o Mme Pardo — so write there. I’m so glad you’ve had my letters. I’d like to see your little notebook.111 Do tell me what you write in it, and in what terms you’re treating yourself as you deserve. Speak to me about yourself — don’t leave me.

  I love you, my sweet little one, I’d so like to talk to you. I’m happy whenever I go and see someone new — but at once disappointed, since the pleasure I’m hoping for from them is that which you alone can give me. I’m mutilated without you, my love. It’s not exactly painful, but it’s sad. In the whole world, there’s only you who count for me.